Love, Romance, & Chocolate

Aside from that, I have to go along with the general assessment. Not bad! Especially from this choco-holic's point of view. But, Lacy Chabert has definitely covered this same ground before. In this case? It's like the love-child of her South African eco-lodge movie for Hallmark...and her Xmas gingerbread movie for Hallmark. Besides which, even as an un-salaried volunteer, wouldn't she have had to upgrade her visa from "pleasure" to "business" in real life?

It was a good movie, great location, great story, and loved the leading actress...but.... she had more chemistry with the supporting actor than the lead actor who she ended up with. I was actually rooting for the other guy (supporting actor).

While I kind of liked the concept of this film and the scenery was very pretty, this script just gave the leads NOTHING to work with. I usually like Lacey Chabert well enough, but she had zero emotions in this film. I mean, in every scene it seemed like all she could muster was a sort of "half smile," whether anything good or bad was happening. The whole thing just kind of felt like a wet blanket. And Lacey Chabert is really good at comedy! Please, Hallmark, can you PLEASE get some script writers who are talented enough to add some emotion to these films. It can still be wholesome and trite without being completely bland on top of it. Put a couple of jokes in, for God's sake. I actually prefer the dumb plots where the woman is a "harried overworked executive who comes to the country to rebuild the inn she inherited" because at least this means the lead has some energy on screen. The leads in this film just seemed like driftwood with no motivation to speak of, notwithstanding the "we must win the chocolate competition!" plot.

An on location shoot in Europe helps to elevate this Hallmark romance above the average. Bruges is overpriced and beautiful and this movie captures it. A silly chocolate theme is the plot. Will Kemp and Lace Chabert are well paired.

This movie is better than the usual bland and slow moving year long Hallmark movies (I love their Christmas season ones). It had wonderful scenes of cobblestone roads, small town shops, old world architecture, and riding on boats moving under the bride, like in gondolas in Venice, Italy, and making chocolate. I would rate it higher if Lacey Chabert's character had not chosen to be with the wrong man, who I thought had lukewarm feelings for her at best and who had a strangely and inappropriately close relationship with a family member, whom he prematurely left Lacey Chabert's character at an important event for.

I just got back from Bruges, so this was a lovely movie to watch to reminisce on my time there (side note, there were no handsome men sweeping me off my feet unfortunately). Irrespective, it's such a beautiful city and the chocolate really is yummy, I think the movie did its best trying to show it! However, no waffles? There's a bit of a McDreamy and McSteamy love triangle going on (for all the Grey's Anatomy fan's), if you know, you know. Extremely cheesy movie even though it was about chocolate, but that's Hallmark for you, don't expect anything less!

I enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Belgium in the background. I loved to see Will Kemp again after watching him in Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce and Step Up 2: The Streets! I thought the tidbits about her grandparents' story was very sweet. And of course, it's all about chocolate!